


Flowerbed

by honebami



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, HPA AU, Nonbinary Oma Kokichi, of some sort, the saiouma is more background but it s there, tsumikichi friends !!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honebami/pseuds/honebami
Summary: Ouma and Tsumiki get to know each other across three seasons.





	Flowerbed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bpd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bpd/gifts).



> for selm !!!  
> thank you to star and claus for betaing, and you for reading !

On a cloudy-skied Autumn day, where fall flowers were left in the leaves, Kokichi Ouma was sick.

Sick from boredom, in this case, because supreme leader-liars like themself simply did not get sick. But allergies? Sure, they had those. They were allergic to the truth and allergic to murder and in this particular moment, they were allergic to boredom.

Ouma splayed themself forward over the desk. It was no use bothering with lectures, really, because they already knew all this, but here they were. They sniffed.

"Excuse me..." they murmured in the most pitiful voice they could muster as they threw their hand into the air, "I... I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well... May I go to the nurse's office...?"

The teacher furrowed her brows, but Ouma's wet eyes and trembling hand in the air must have been convincing enough. "Alright, Ouma. Come back when you feel better."

Too easy. Disappointingly easy, in fact, but at least Saihara shot them a knowing glance from where he sat beside them. Ouma winked at him as they skittered out of the classroom.

They skipped off in a random direction, to see if they could find an art class they could make ugly clown paintings in. They liked to leave them in dark corners and people's lockers, as presents for their beloved friends, of course; but when they passed the nurse's office, they hopped to a stop.

They'd certainly lied their way out of class before, but they hadn’t followed up with actually going for help. Something new was always interesting, right? They twisted the dull-metal handle and stepped through, careful to slow their pace to a stutter.

"E-Excuse me," Ouma said, and tried to hold back a grin and a fist pump upon seeing a basket of crayons and a splayed open colouring book upon the waiting area’s low table, "I don't feel so well…” They plopped themself down on the sofa and dug through the basket.

Before they could draw with their cyber grape crayon, a girl with chopped and flipping purple hair (good taste!) peeped out from another room. "I-I-I'm so sorry! I'll be right there!"

She scuttled over to where Ouma waited, slipped on a conveniently placed crayon, and tumbled backwards onto the floor.

Ouma slipped the crayon into their pocket and leaned over the table. "Are you done?"

She scrambled to her feet with fresh tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm sorry! P-Please, follow me."

Ouma complied, for once, and followed her into a dimmed room with flat beds. They splayed themself across one and curled like a cat in the thin blanket.

"Um..." she began, stammering her fingers together, "w-what seems to be troubling you? And may I get your name?"

"Tuck me in first!"

"Huh? Oh, um, I guess that's okay," she said as she scrambled for another blanket. Her hands were deft and focused as she lay the blanket over them and folded the edge under their chin.

Ouma clasped the blanket with their hands in paws. "Whoo, service here is great! My name is Kokichi Saihara, and–”

"Um…” She kneaded the corner of the blanket. “I'm... sorry to interrupt, but your name is Kokichi Ouma, isn't it?"

"And yours is Mikan Tsumiki! You're pretty good, though. Gold star!" Ouma grinned brightly up at her.

“No, not at all… I, I've just heard about you before.” Again, her fingers tumbled over themselves as if in a washing machine. “Ouma, what seems to be the problem?”

It sure wouldn't be boring to have your limbs thrown and stomach spun in the belly of a washer. "The truth is... I have a serious medical condition only the super high school level nurse can heal. I don't have a heart."

Mikan raised her hands to her chest. "I, um… I understand the way you feel, but... I'm pretty sure that's not possible." She held Ouma's wrist and pressed her fingers to the pulse. "Your heartbeat is just fine."

Ouma pouted. "But everyone always says I'm heartless... Do you mean they were lying to me this whole time? How cruel!”

No one had been lying about that, of course. Perhaps someone else would hate to admit that the venom spat at their feet was their own blood, but this was was a bloom Ouma had planted themself, morning glory running up along their bones until green obscured white.

"People said that to you?” Her breath sharpened. “I-I'm so sorry... But, I don't think they meant to say you literally don't have one..."

It was all red, so it didn't make a difference either way, but surely it was at least interesting.

"Yeah, you're right! I'm nothing but a devious demon,” they said, and rolled their head against the pillow. "Only an idiot would think I had feelings."

Tsumiki whimpered. "W-Well, you, you are right... I am just a good-for-nothing, ugly idiot... But, Ouma, you came here because you felt unwell, didn't you...?" She laced her hands together this time. The skin by her nails flaked rose-white.

Ouma sat up. "Oh, that was a lie. Geez, I thought you'd know!"

"I... Well... I can tell you aren't sick... I just thought..." She took a breath. "Some people… might come because they felt lonely?"

Ouma's face fell blank. Tsumiki trembled from where she sat by the bed. Her eyes darted aside and back again.

Huh. She had plants under her skin as well, did she?

"What, is that why you do this job?" Ouma asked. They pointed a finger. "Having people come to you for help, hanging on to your every word for how to get better... Is that it?"

Her breathing jumped to her chest. Ouma hauled themself out of the bed and turned to leave. "Well! That was fun. You're more interesting than I thought you'd be, Tsumiki! I'll come to play again soon!"

✿

On a crisp winter morning, where dried stems huddled under snow, Kokichi Ouma was sick.

They were allergic to boredom and the truth, yes, but more than anything, they were allergic to murder and allergic to murderers; yet this filthy school seemed to welcome them in droves.

The assassin was the worst, for she was in the same class. Their teacher had tried to put them in the same group for a project once, and Ouma had wailed and cried and jabbed the glittery purple ink of their pen against their hand until their teacher backpedaled in alarm and assured them that it was okay, they could join another group of classmates who were none too thrilled to have them. They left the shimmery smear on their skin, as if not washing the ink off would send it sinking into their blood, painting the red with purple and gold.

It wasn't just the assassin they hated, though, as nice as that would be with what a clever thing life was. They hated murderers of any degree, and said murderers included one Hiyoko Saionji.

After an early autumn rainstorm that sent the worms from their earth, Ouma had been distracted from their game of painter's tag with Angie by the sound of heavy sobs. Gonta's huge body was curled in over the wet soil as he cried, and standing over him, chirping with laughter, was Saionji. Ouma didn't need to come closer to know what she'd done.

The next morning, Gonta opened his locker to find an ugly painting of a worm family; Saionji, her schoolbooks glued into bricks.

A killer was a killer, and so, Ouma hated her; and on this wintery day as they passed the nurse's office, on their way to pour syrup in the snow, they heard her nasty voice. Change of plans, then. They jumped up and down til their breath was ragged, rubbed their eyes and nose raw, and squeezed a practiced tear down their cheek before pushing the door open.

"Muh, Miss Tsumiki!" they cried as they strode right into the room where she and Saionji were, "I, I feel sick!"

Saionji cut off her tirade against Mikan and glared at Ouma with a butterknife eye. "What are you doing here, you rancid piglet?"

"You're right, I am a smart and cute and pink baby, thank you!" they said before turning to Tsumiki. "Pwease, Tsumiki, nurse me!"

"O-Oh, um…” She darted her berrystained eyes between them and Saionji. “What seems to be the problem, Ouma?" she asked.

"God, could a filthy sow like you be any stupider?" spat Saionji. "They’re obviously faking!"

Ouma sniffled. “Geez, you're so mean… At least I'm trying to act sick, instead of coming here to boost my banana-bunch self esteem by beating down on someone who will take it...” They sniffed again, once more, and sneezed a well aimed snot bullet at Saionji.

She screamed and scrambled from the bed, and tried to wipe her freshly boogered kimono sleeve on Tsumiki. Ouma pulled Tsumiki out of the way, Saionji staggered forward, Tsumiki turned on her heel and fell sideways, and all three of them crashed down to the floor.

“God, you're both the worst! Ugly purple pigs like you belong together!” shrieked Saionji. She kicked her way to her feet, stomped to the door, and slammed it behind her.

The fluorescent lights glared sunspots in Ouma’s eyes. “So, if I'm the piglet, and you're the sow… that makes you my mama!” They giggled. “It's actually kinda nice on the floor. Is that why you fall down so much?”

Tsumiki pulled herself up and wiped a tear from her eye. “W-Well, I…” She shook her head. “Are you alright?”

“Nope! I'm all down. On the floor.” Ouma poked her nose. She squeaked.

“I-I mean… are you okay?” She offered her hand, but Ouma didn't take it.

Maybe they should invite Tsumiki to join DICE one of these days. She had the nose-honk skill down, after all. They pushed themself up on their arms. “You bet! If you're already on the ground, no one can knock you down, right?”

Tsumiki’s lilac-ash eyes didn't meet theirs.

“Instead, they'll just step on you, and kick you until you can't get up.” Ouma got to their feet. “If that's inevitable, you may as well run around doing whatever you want in the meantime!” They leaned over her. “C’mon, stand up, silly!”

She staggered to her feet. “S-Sorry…”

“Geez, you apologize like I tell lies.” Ouma turned to leave. “See you, mama Tsumiki! I'm gonna go cause trouble!”

“Ah, um,” she stuttered, her bandaged hand slightly reaching, “please wait a moment.”

Ouma linked their hands behind their head and pirouetted to face her. “What is it? Do you wanna run away with me? Leave your nursing life behind and join my super secret evil clown circus?”

Tsumiki's fingers thumbed over themselves. “N-No, I just– were you… Earlier, were you…” She stared down at her hands. They were slower today, turning over each other like the last dead leaves tumbling around one another in the wind. “Nev-Nevermind. Sorry.”

Ouma tilted their head to one side and hummed. “How mysterious! You're gonna leave me wondering all day! Maybe…”

She was catching on, huh? But, as Saihara would chide them, not everyone appreciated their weeds being pulled out.

“You wanna hang out with the cute and pink me more, but you can't leave your job behind to become a clown! What a tragedy!” They swooned in horror, and let themself fall on back on their heel for a second before swinging themself around and posing with their arms over their head.

Tsumiki giggled. She cupped her hands over her smile and blinked her eyes wide. “I, I'm so sorry for– I wasn't laughing at you, I– please don’t hate me!” she burbled out in a rush.

Ouma laughed. “Why are you apologizing, Tsumiki? There's no greater happiness for a clown than to make someone smile!”

Tsumiki lowered her hands and clasped them before her chest. “S-So, you don't… hate me for laughing?” she asked, her eyebrows crumpling together.

“Of course not!” Ouma said, “didn't you know? Every time someone giggles at a clown, a new clown fairy is born inside of a flower… Which means, a new member for my organization! So, thank you, Tsumiki!” They twirled a hand to their waist and bowed.

“I'm sorry!” Tsumiki squeaked, “I mean, um, I'm, I'm glad…?” Her fingertips lightly threaded between each other. The corners of her mouth twitched upward.

Ouma beamed in return. “That's the spirit! It works out for both of us!” They turned to leave once more. The metal of the door handle was a dull chill under their palm. “See you soon! Maybe one of these days, I'll actually be sick.”

✿

On a nipping-air spring day, where flowersprouts who had learned to seek sunlight popped from the Earth's skin, Kokichi Ouma wasn't sick.

Nope! They absolutely weren't sick! Not even allergic. Not sick of truth, not sick of lies, not sick of death, and they certainly weren't–

Ouma erupted with a loud sneeze.

“Um, K-Kokichi…” started Saihara as he turned to face them, “I'm sorry, did I get you sick?”

God dammit. Ouma pouted their fiercest of pouts, but the cold roll of snot down their lip probably ruined the effect. “Of, course I'm not sick. Who do you think I am? Didn't I tell you before that I don't, don't, don't get,” they sneezed again, punctuated by a violent hiccup, and smeared the booger onto Saihara’s desk. “Don't get sick. Besides, it's my job to kiss you better, my beloved Shuu-i-chi!”

Saihara's face flushed sun-hot, and Ouma couldn't help the breath of relief at being in control again; old habits die hard.

“There's no need to act all guilty now. You seemed to be enjoying it just as much as I was!” They waggled their eyebrows at Saihara, who sighed into a smile and nudged their cheek with a gentle hand. Ouma licked it and giggled.

Saihara wiped the hand Ouma licked on his pant leg. “I think you should go to the nurse's office. Your face was really hot.”

Ouma stuck their tongue out. “You always think my face is hot though, don't you?”

“That's... not what I meant.” Saihara closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. “I’m worried about your health. There's…” he paused, which probably meant he was about to reach under their skin, “...nothing weak about going to see the nurse.”

Did it feel like a game of battleship to him, maybe? The hesitation, the shot carefully chosen to pull them closer underwater? Games were more their thing, so probably not, but they were fine with sinking if it was into him.

“What are you,” they sniffed, “talking about, Shuuichi? I'm a weak jelly monster! Every day my limbs fall off! I'm a baby turtle who can't get to the water before being gobbled up!”

Read me, read me. They started to their feet–

And promptly stumbled backwards as their vision blurred and their head swam.

A jumble of plastic and metal hit the floor by their side– that was their chair, and their favourite voice called their name– it felt a lie to them still, and perhaps they imagined the sound– and somehow, they felt they were supposed to be much stronger than this.

\--

As Ouma awoke, a blurry face framed by strands of jutting plum hair stared down at them. Ouma blinked once, twice, before attempting to haul themself up; Tsumiki’s soft hands on their shoulders set them back against the bed.

“Please, don't strain yourself,” she said. She lay a fresh ice pack across their forehead.

A melted droplet drooled a chill down Ouma’s temple. “Aww, it's almost like you,” their body lurched as they coughed between their words, “like you care!”

“I-I do...” she said. “Though I'm sure you wouldn't want someone like me caring about your health. I'm sorry.”

Ouma groaned and sniffled. “You know, Tsumiki, what do you actually mean when you say that stuff?”

Her hands paused their fumbling. “What… stuff?”

Ouma pitched their voice into a cutesy squeak. “I'm so sorry, I'm so horrible and disgusting and clumsy, even though I'm,” they coughed again, and resigned themself to their regular voice, “talented enough to be the super high school level nurse and I'm kind to everyone including ugly murderers who hate me and evil liars who waste my time.”

She stared back at them, eye-whites wide, a tremble in her jaw.

“Are you hoping that someone will reassure you?” Ouma tilted their head. “Or are you beating yourself down before they can?” They tilted their head to the other side. “Or is offering yourself up to be hurt the only way you know how to be touched?”

Violet blooms on top of their skin were an easy heat, a force that compacted them. Even as the seasons passed, their beloved's flower-petal fingertips barely against their skin made them shudder, and they'd need to breathe tight against the climbers that wrapped their lungs; but it was only those fingers that could dip under their waterskin and weave apart their stems.

Tsumiki's nail dragged a white line along her pressed-red hands. She breathed out in a shudder.

...They could really stand to be a bit more gentle in their mottled excuse for kindness. “Tsumiki, do you wanna hear a secret?” they asked. “I lie because a trickster god fell in love with me, and when I turned him down, he put a curse on me to never be able to be honest, so no one would ever love or understand me again!” They sniffled and squeezed tears from their eyes. “Isn't that just the worst?”

“Um…” Tsumiki's hands turned. “That can't be true, because if it was, you wouldn't be able to tell me that, right…?”

“Yup! That was just a made-up story. I'm impressed you're being logical about it though. Usually people just say it's ridiculous!” They sat themself up. “Now, I wanna hear a secret from you! Why do you take care of me when I'm obviously faking every time I come to play?”

Tsumiki pulled out a tissue and wiped Ouma's nose. “You're… not faking today, are you?” she asked. She must already know the answer, of course. Ouma stuck their tongue out at her. “But even if you were… I…” she glanced away for a moment, “I think it's better to help someone who didn’t actually need it than to leave someone who may not have been faking after all. People who fake… must have a reason for it.”

Ouma lay their head down and turned their cheek to the cool fabric of the pillow. “So you're the sort,” they coughed, “who would always run to the boy who cried wolf. That's foolish, maybe, but admirable.”

She sat upon the bed's edge. “Well, even in that story… the boy was lonely, right?”

“Maybe! Or maybe he just likes to mess with people.” The fluorescent light glared white in their eyes. “That wouldn't make for a very interesting character, though. I think we're much cooler, even if people don't get it.”

She blinked up, raising her hands in front of her. “I–”

“Lies are stories, and stories are secrets,” they sang, and turned their hand back and forth as they held it over their face. “Which reminds me! Do you want to hear how my secret story ended?”

Her brows furrowed, and she lowered her arms. “Ah, alright.”

“The trickster god was lying all along, and the stupid boy believed it. The only one who cursed the boy was the boy himself!” They laughed, but it was strained by the phlegm in their throat. “He turned the lie into the truth. But any truth like that can be broken down with enough persistence.”

Even after all their decay and all their growth, that still felt like a lie, turning over itself in their mind. But what were they if not an alchemist?

Tsumiki's eyes were soft, and her hands held still against her chest. Thought tumbled over itself inside her too now; they could read it, all too easily and yet with curious wonder.

“Anyway,” Ouma continued, “he figured that out with the help of a very cute boy who wanted to love and understand him, and then they got married and became clowns and took over the world with their ten thousand children to make it a happy circus paradise! The end!” Ouma clapped, and coughed, and cursed their weakness. “May you let your fake truth die one day too, my beloved Tsumiki,” they said, their voice light.

“Huh?” She startled from her trance of thought, popping like an opening blossom, “B-Beloved…?”

Ouma smiled brightly. They let their eyes crinkle like petals. “Yup! I usually save that for cute boys, ‘cause god forbid a girl get the wrong idea. But you deserve it!”

It's something she needed to hear, but Ouma held that thought to themself. They should find a way to set Chabashira up to meet Tsumiki, for she’d do a much better job; poisonflowers still weaved through Ouma's teeth, after all. Ouma coughed again, harsher this time, as if to dislodge a bud from their throat. God, this was never easy.

“A-Ah, Ouma, please don't strain yourself.” She tucked the blanket to their chin and smoothed it over their body. Maybe caring for patients was a way she got touch too, Ouma thought to themself, and maybe she could tell that Ouma's strain wasn't about sickness at all.

They laughed weakly. “Okay... You're the nurse, so I’ll trust you,” they said. Of course, that was a lie, for they didn't trust anyone who they hadn't let bleed with them; but loving her probably wasn't. “I am,” they sighed in the most overdramatic way they could muster, “actually sick this time, after all.”

She smiled softly. Ouma could see something turn open under her lips. “Thank you,” she said, and gently set another blanket over them and tucked them in. “Please get some rest, alright? I'll take care of you.”

As Ouma's eyes grew heavy, and they sunk downwards into the bed, they almost felt they believed it.


End file.
